"In the end, Gov. Charlie Crist’s effort to buy huge swaths of sugar company land for the Everglades restoration was just too much: too much money, too much land to handle, and too much of a fight with critics and the courts."
"The Interior Department has released the rest of a partially leaked document listing potential sites for new national monuments, but the move did nothing to quell Republican accusations that the Obama administration is plotting to lock up public lands."
A federal appeals court has ruled that the National Park Service is violating the First Amendment with its current rules requiring permits for demonstrations, gatherings, and public "expressions of views" on National Park System lands.
"The opponents of Pebble, the giant copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska, have asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to invoke its potent and rarely used power to block the potential mine. But U.S. Rep. Don Young late last month filed legislation seeking to strip the EPA of that authority."
"Dillingham, Alaska -- It is an unfortunate coincidence of geography that this lush region of wild rivers, grassy tundra and windy sea is home to two competing treasures of almost unimaginable value: the world's largest sockeye salmon run, supporting a fishery worth $440 million a year; and in the hills behind it, a massive deposit of copper, molybdemum and gold worth at least $300 billion."
"About an hour's drive southwest of Las Vegas, on a private 2,200-acre desert patch flanked by Clark Mountain and the Mojave National Preserve, lies an idled mine many consider to be a linchpin in the U.S. push for energy independence and national security."
"The National Mining Association, which represents most major U.S. coal mining companies, on Tuesday filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency, saying it was unlawfully obstructing permits for coal mining operations in Central Appalachia."
"Four years after tragedies in Kentucky and West Virginia prompted sweeping mine safety changes, a House panel Tuesday split along party lines over the need for additional reforms."
Both polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (primarily from combustion sources) and pesticides are pervasive in 8 diverse US national parks, according to two Environmental Science & Technology studies by international teams of university and government agency researchers.
"The Obama administration has given its tentative approval to a new mountaintop removal permit, provided the Logan County operation makes changes federal regulators say are needed to protect downstream water quality."
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